updated 03:45 pm EST, Wed January 4, 2012

Netflix streamed 2b hours of TV in fourth quarter

Netflix just revealed that its subscribers watched over two billion hours of TV shows and movies in the fourth quarter of 2011, leading one analyst to name it as the 15th largest TV 'network.' Richard Greenfield from BTIG believes Netflix is replacing TV viewing time in households and is the second-most watched in homes with cable and the subscription service. He had previously expected it to be 25th rather than 15th in the quarter.

Notably, Netflix had more viewing hours in October than FX, HGTV, and History and more than doubled those from CNN, Discovery, MSNBC and BET. This is more impressive considering Netflix is only in 21 million US homes, Greenfield wrote. If only homes with Netflix were counted in the Nielsen stats, it would be second overall, with only CBS (and affiliate groups) viewed more. ABC would be a distant third, he added.

In the overall picture, however, Netflix accounts for just 2.4 percent of the total TV watching time. It faces hurdles such as studios still clinging to cable and satellite deals as well as the TV providers themselves instituting bandwidth caps and threatening studios to discourage the use of any outside Internet video source. [viaHollywood Reporter]